


I'll Always Be Around

by lastyoungrene_gay_de



Series: tua creators bingo [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Based on a song, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dead Character POV, Drug Use, Ghosts, Grief, M/M, POV Dave, Protective Dave, The Apocalypse, Title from a Waterparks Song, dave is a ghost who yells at other ghosts for bothering klaus, this is not an original idea at all i just wanted to make myself cry, which i did :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastyoungrene_gay_de/pseuds/lastyoungrene_gay_de
Summary: Dave's experience with Klaus' ghosts.TUA Creators Bingo Prompt: Klave
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: tua creators bingo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740223
Comments: 4
Kudos: 90





	I'll Always Be Around

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to find a way to write a short klave thing with the lines from waterparks' "i'll always be around" but could never really make it work, so i did what i could.  
> lines I was trying to find a way to use: "if you died i hope you'd haunt me/ cause i know i'd miss you bad" and god if that isn't post vietnam klaus about dave

“Can I tell you something, Dave?” Klaus asked from where he was still pressed against Dave’s side in the crappy motel bed. 

“Of course,” Dave said, rubbing comforting circles onto Klaus shoulder with the hand of the arm wrapped around him. 

“I can see ghosts,” Klaus muttered, as if he was still unsure if he wanted to say it. Dave turned his head to look at him, not really sure how to take that. 

“Really?” he finally settled on asking. Klaus pressed his face to his side and nodded. Dave felt it more than he saw it. “How does that work?” 

“I was born with these powers- me and my siblings were, but we all have different powers- and mine is seeing ghosts,” Klaus explained. Dave nodded along to show he was listening. Klaus started moving his fingers around, trailing them along Dave’s chest. “I found out when I was younger that getting drunk or high out of my mind made them go away.”

“Do they actually go away or do you just not see them?” Dave asked, but he thought he knew the answer already. He knew Klaus had a tendency to focus on short term solutions rather than long term, but the idea that Klaus may have become an addict trying to escape something that upset him that much made his blood boil and his stomach flip. 

“Is there a difference?” Klaus responded softly. Exactly the kind of answer Dave had been expecting. 

“There is and you know it,” he said quickly. 

“I’m just tired of seeing them,” Klaus whispered, fingers stilling on Dave’s chest. “And hearing them.” 

“What do they do?” Dave asked, tightening his arm around Klaus’ shoulder. 

“They scream,” Klaus muttered. “At me. At anything around me. Anything they can. They think I can help them but I  _ can’t _ .” Dave pulled him closer and wrapped his other arm around him too. 

“I’m sorry,” he told him, knowing there was no other way to help him. “I’m sorry baby.” 

  
  


_ Ohgod _ , Dave thought as he looked around at the chaos surrounding him. He was surrounded by people- screaming, wailing people. Far more people than had been there last time he looked away from his rifle scope. There were  _ so many _ people and so many of them clearly didn’t belong in the trenches and foxholes of the Vietnam war. They were all focused on one place- no, one person. Dave followed their gaze and what he felt was the dead equivalent of a burst of adrenaline- because what he was did make him realize he was dead. 

They were all looking at Klaus. It reminded him of their conversation in the motel months before, so long ago Dave was still scared to tell Klaus he loved him as he was trying to comfort him. Klaus could see ghosts. These people were ghosts.  _ He _ was a ghost. That point was really driven home when he realized that Klaus was crying and screaming over his dead body. 

Oh. 

Then he heard it- what Klaus mentioned. The screams. It must have snapped him out of whatever “recently deceased” stunned phase he was in, because suddenly he was running through the crowd toward him. 

“Stop it! Leave him alone!” he screamed, but his company ignored him. “Leave him alone!” He collapsed onto his knees next to Klaus, ignoring his own body in his lover’s arms. “Klaus,” he said softly in an attempt to comfort rather than terrifying him. 

“No, no, no, no, no, no,  _ no _ ,” Klaus said without looking up. He gently set a hand on his cheek and shook him, as if trying to wake him from a nap. “Dave,  _ please _ !” The crack in his voice broke Dave’s still heart. 

“Hargreeves, we gotta get  _ the fuck _ outta here!” someone yelled, causing Dave to look up at their surroundings. If Klaus didn’t get out of there right then he wasn’t going to get out of there. He wanted to be with Klaus but not nearly enough to be able to stomach watching him die. 

“Klaus, you have to go,” he told him even though he probably wouldn’t hear him. 

“No, no, Dave!” 

“Klaus,  _ please _ .” Now it was his turn for his voice to break. 

Finally, Klaus looked away from Dave and around him. It seemed to register in his mind how bad the situation was and he looked back down as his fingers toyed with the chain around Dave’s neck. 

“Take them,” Dave said, mostly to comfort himself rather than Klaus, who he knew still couldn’t hear him. “God please take them and  _ get out of here _ .” 

As if he heard him, Klaus pulled the dogtags over Dave’s head and dropped them over his own before taking off as fast as he could in a crouching position to stay hidden. 

Dave followed him, but so did the rest of the ghosts. They followed him until he got back to base and was finally allowed to sit down after what felt like hours. They all watched him as he scrambled around until he found the mysterious briefcase he’d arrived in Vietnam with and cried some more as he opened it. He disappeared in the same flash of blue he’d arrived in. 

As soon as he was gone, the ghosts stopped wailing, and a subtle pulling sensation Dave hadn’t even noticed was there disappeared with him. 

It was what he later found out was almost twenty years later before he felt that pull again. He followed it, and was soon surrounded by ghosts once again, but this time they were surrounding a child. Time was weird when you were dead, so Dave wasn’t sure how long it took him to find the source of the tug, but by the time he got there he could see the boy was clearly traumatized by everything around him. 

“Stop!” Dave yelled at the other ghosts. “Stop screaming! Leave the kid alone!” Unlike the last time he tried to silence the ghosts on someone else’s behalf, the kid heard him. He smiled gratefully at him and Dave smiled back, though he knew he would soon be lost in the crowd again. 

It didn’t take him long to figure out who the boy was. Seven siblings, all but one had powers, all living with an asshole of a father in a house with a large umbrella decal on the front door that matched a tattoo of someone he knew very well. This boy wasn’t  _ like _ Klaus; he  _ was _ Klaus. It all made even more sense when the father explained that one of the sibling’s powers included the ability to time travel. 

Dave ignored the pull in his chest after that. Spying on his boyfriend as a kid from the future before he had any idea who he was because he was dead and a fucking ghost wasn’t exactly a situation Dave had been prepared for, but it didn’t sit well with him. He felt creepy sticking around Klaus after that, so he left. He travelled, saw the world as it progressed and advanced. He kept tabs on his own family, checked in on his nieces and nephews and their growing families. He listened to new music and watched new movies and TV. 

Eventually he saw Klaus with his siblings and his father on TV, and his vision blurred with rage. He’d seen the way Hargreeves treated those kids, and as much as he knew that not everyone knew the truth of what happened in the mansion, seeing people cheer for the things they did made him want to do whatever the ghost equivalent of being sick was. 

Things changed when the teleporting brother went missing, though (Dave knew they had a different name for what he did, but teleport was the easiest term for him to understand). The family believed he time travelled, but Dave still searched the planet the best he could based on the tiny chance it was actually a teleport incident gone wrong. He couldn’t find him. He didn’t really expect to, but he was still disappointed. 

More time passed. One of Klaus’ brothers died. Actually died. Klaus spent a long time ignoring his ghost, but it was just another reason for Dave to avoid them altogether. He didn’t want Ben asking him any questions he couldn’t answer yet. It was also hard for him to watch everything Klaus had to go through. He’d told him about a lot of it before he died, but that didn’t make accidentally walking in on some of it any easier. 

More time passed. Their father died (Dave cheered when he heard the news) and the siblings reunited for his funeral. Five came back, apparently a lot older but still looking like he did when he disappeared. As Klaus got older and began to look more and more like the Klaus Dave knew in Vietnam, he made extra efforts to not be seen by him or Ben to avoid questions or being recognized when he got to Vietnam, but he attended the family reunion as an invisible guest to keep an eye on Klaus. He knew this was going to be hard on him- not the fact that his father was dead, but the fear that he would show up and haunt him some more. He watched from afar as he drank, smoked, used, stole, and lied, but couldn’t find it in himself to hold it against him. Not knowing the truth about the reality of Klaus’ life. Sure, maybe the stealing and the lying about it the next day weren’t the most honorable decisions, but if Dave’s father was the asshole billionaire that just died, he couldn’t necessarily say he would do anything different. 

Then Klaus was kidnapped and tortured. He used his powers to freak the kidnappers out, and as proud as he was Dave stuck to the dark corners room to avoid being seen. Then the detective showed up, and Klaus got away, in his escape grabbing the  _ briefcase _ . 

This was it. Klaus looked just as beat up and bruised and bloody as the first time Dave saw him and he had the fucking briefcase. He watched as Klaus started fiddling with the clasps, muttering under his breath about money or treasure. He watched as he opened it and disappeared in the same flash of blue light, probably seconds away from appearing at the foot of Dave's cot in 1968. 

Dave realized he didn’t know what to do from here. 

He sat on the bus, right next to the seat Klaus had disappeared from, and his leg began bouncing. It was a nervous tick he thought would have stopped when he died, but he was wrong about that. He didn’t know what to expect from here. Up until then he knew he was waiting for the moment Klaus flashed away, but never considered what he’d do once he was gone. He knew Klaus would come back, or at least that he would leave Vietnam. He didn’t know when he would be getting back  _ here _ . So he sat and waited. He’d waited fifty years already, he could wait a little bit longer. 

The bus continued its route and a few hours later, Klaus appeared right where he had been sitting before. Dave couldn’t stop himself from smiling. After all these years, finally the Klaus in front of him  _ knew _ him. His smile fell when he saw his face. He looked a small gust of wind away from falling apart. 

He was still covered in dirt and grime. It was on his skin, in his hair, on his clothes- everywhere. His hands were still covered in blood- Dave’s blood. Tears were pooling in his eyes as he started straight ahead. After a few seconds his grip on the corners of the briefcase tightened and he started to sob. 

Dave wanted to comfort him, tell him he was there, but he remembered that Klaus couldn’t see him right before he came back fifty years ago. But it wasn’t fifty years ago, not to Klaus. To Klaus it was this morning. 

“Oh, god baby,” Dave whispered when he realized how fresh it all was to the man sitting in front of him. “I’m so sorry baby. I’m here now, and for as long as I can be, I’ll always be around.” 

He followed Klaus off the bus, back to the Academy, to the bath, to the bar with Diego, everywhere. He waited for a moment between highs to let him know he was there with him. He never found one and was beginning to think he wouldn’t at all until after a conversation Klaus had with Diego. 

_ “At least when you lose someone you get to see them whenever you want,” Diego had said. _ _That’s not how it works, but okay, Dave had thought,_ but then the next day Klaus flushed his stash he’d hidden in his room. 

Then things got hectic for the Hargreeves household. They were all running around trying to stop the end of the world. Dave just followed them, not sure what else to do. 

When they were watching the moon fall, standing together hoping Five would get them out of there, Dave stood right behind Klaus and told him, “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna figure it out, I know you will. I love you.” 

Then they were gone. 

And so was everything else. 

**Author's Note:**

> as always talk to me on tumblr @lastyoungrene-gay-de !!


End file.
